International Women's Day
Go past the simplistic idea that a female representation is powerful in an of itself.
As I dropped my daughter at school on Friday morning, Katy Perry’s “Roar” thundered across the speaker system. Right. International Women’s Day.
A day that has, honestly, long rubbed me the wrong way. Of course there’s the way many corporations use it to leverage the pretence that they care about tackling sexism, but there’s something else… Something that only began to crystallize in my mind once I had a daughter of my own.
I look at my little leader, and she really is a natural leader. She is emotionally intuitive and intelligent; kind and empathetic; and a most benevolent big sister – who only sometimes uses her extra 20 months of earth-won brain power to get the best of her brother…
But she also sometimes legitimately trespasses into being bossy… In a world where you’re not really allowed to say that anymore.
Because someone, somewhere, decided the solution to sexism isn’t a more flat, equitable and kind society, but rather one where girls are fostered to be just as patriarchal and aggressive as we postulate men have been.
This is how we’ve been given permission to “do feminism” in late stage capitalism. As long as we’re Girl Bossing and Leaning In… So long as we, like the average corporate IWD initiative, is propping up the system and making it palatable, rather than upending it, it’s a green light.
The maddening part is that this creates a vicious cycle. This line of thinking breeds exceptionalism and we see this everywhere on days like IWD. The women being celebrated are tokenized representations of women who have “achieved” something by the metrics of the very same system that keeps us down.
It’s the reason why Margaret Thatcher, a woman who supported some of the single most inequitable and inhumane policies (trade union reform, tax cuts for wealthy, housing schemes to purposefully reduce affordability, financial de-regulation to increase speculative markets, to name a few) and Coco Channel (known to have had Nazi affiliations) can sit alongside women like Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Harriet Tubman, and Mae C. Jemison in my daughter’s feminist stories book – without the publisher experiencing a lick of cognitive dissonance.
Between this book and such Marvel superheroes
as “War Machine” (WTF), the propaganda really is everywhere…
Not only does this thinking imply that only a select few can achieve greatness, but ironically, it perpetuates the idea that women are inherently less capable or competent than men. It undermines the pursuit of equality by suggesting that exceptional women are just that – the exception, rather than the norm.
But my daughter is simply a full and robust human being. She has incredible strengths that I am in genuine awe of… And I have also seen her turn around and use those strengths selfishly, at times. Human.
Not only do I hate the idea of reducing her to a gender norm, I resent the idea that I’m supposed to teach her how to lean into the worst manifestation of herself to survive and succeed in this world.
(I also think it’s an equally ugly belief to stand on when I look my sweet little boy who is surely not the sum of the worst of what the patriarchy has to offer.)
Whether we’re raising little girls or boys or both, we need to give our kids more than standard girl power platitudes. We need to resist the kind of thinking that tells us that criticizing women is “un-feminist” – starting with our own children (and, yes, including even Taylor Swift).
So as I write a piece that shits all over a day that people seem to really enjoy, you may be asking, Kristine, have you always been such a fucking killjoy? and to that I say, whose joy are we talking about – and yes. Always. But it’s not because I am joyless, my loves. And it’s not because everything must always be bleak…
Rather, this is a charge to practice a little more imagination. I hear people everywhere, all the time, say, Well that’s just the way it is… and my question for them is: Why? Can we not, instead, envision a world for our children that is different? One that is better? Dare I say, matriarchal.
I often imagine a world where kids will be absolutely perplexed when they ask the teacher to explain how “collateral damage” was a thing. The teacher will have to explain that such an antiquated term existed in a time when people thought war was inevitable; money made people more valuable; and that race and gender were fixed, natural ideas that reflected the truth of a hierarchy of human existence.
When I deconstruct a day like International Women’s Day, it’s not to say it isn’t bringing some positivity to the world. It’s just that the world I dream of doesn’t bump up against its current limitations and just give up. The world I dream of for us, our children, perhaps theirs, looks wildly different.
The first step is to use IWD to think beyond the superficial. Go past the simplistic idea that a female representation is powerful in an of itself. Think about it: Does it really matter if there are women in the room if they’re just green-lighting genocide?
Let’s use our understanding of the oppression we experience as women to extrapolate outward to what it may feel like to add any additional layer of marginalization to it. Let’s zoom out and be critical about the impact we collectively make on systems and institutions, rather than be satisfied to see a couple (or more) token women uphold the status quo.
To be sure, we also need women/allies in this world who work within the system to make the day-to-day better and if that’s you, your work matters too. But my passion lies with challenging the status quo.
In honour of IWJ passing by again this year, I want to recommend some of my current faves for thinking about the systems and structures that define and confine us – and how we may start to break them down:
BOOKS
White Women - An integral part of anti-racist work, especially for white women.
Machiavelli for Women - A data-driven read that shows how rigged the corporate system is against women, especially mothers. It also provides practical tips for succeeding in light of that data.
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men - Another dive into the ways our systems overlook women’s needs. Even bathrooms at the opera are political.
Hey, Hun - A take down of the predatory MLM system (a true monster of late-stage capitalism) that largely targets and harms women and mothers.
Fair Play - A must-read on the distribution of domestic labour in cis-het households. If you struggle with this in your partnership, it can actually be turned into a ‘game’ that you can play with your partner to address the issues.
Trick Mirror - Essays that deliver a cutting (albeit cynical) cultural take down.
SUBSTACKS
Undoing Motherhood. A motherhood liberation movement.
Culture Work (The Weekly Work) - Whip smart analyses on pop culture and politics.
Here4TheKids - A community dedicated to solidarity and abolishing systems of oppression for collective liberation.
Playground Talk - Questioning the status quo of parenting in North America.
PODCASTS
The Bitchuation Room - American politics from the comedic lens of a mom you’ll wish you were bffs with.
Blowback - Relearn history. It’s not what you think.
Upstream - Economics from an anti-capitalist lens.
Socialism Conference - Discussions on social movements, Marxism, abolition, working-class history, and strategies for organizing.
Please also share your recommendations with me!
The latest from Instagram…
*I acknowledge that this conversation is far more nuanced and goes beyond the rigid and untrue duality of conventional gender norms, but for this essay and my own motherhood experience, I focus on “little girls.”